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Key Vote

Key Votes on Amendments to the Make America Secure Appropriations Act, H.R. 3219

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote on amendments offered to the Make America Secure Appropriations Act, H.R. 3219, in the manner prescribed on each amendment below. As is always the case, FreedomWorks reserves the right to key vote any amendment brought to the floor for a vote.

NO – Amendment #2: Sponsored by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), this amendment would prohibit funds provided by H.R. 3219 from being used to “propose, plan for, or execute” another round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). A 2013 report by the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) estimated that the first four rounds of BRAC save approximately $8 billion annually. The 2005 BRAC is saving nearly $4 billion annually. This amendment against a new round of BRAC would prevent further cost-savings from becoming a reality.

YES – Amendment #19: Sponsored by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), this amendment would eliminate the CBO’s Budget Analysis Division. The amendment transfers the authority of the division to the Director of the CBO.

YES – Amendment #20: Sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), this amendment would make a 1 percent across the board rescission to the spending levels provided by H.R. 3219, with exemptions for Capitol Police and other security-related accounts.

YES – Amendment #26: Sponsored by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), this amendment would reduce the appropriation to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) by more than $25.4 million.

YES – Amendment #39: Sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), this amendment would make a 1 percent across the board rescission to Division D of H.R. 3219 – the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

FreedomWorks will count the vote on these amendments to the Make America Secure Appropriations Act, H.R. 3219, on our 2017 Congressional Scorecard and reserves the right to score votes for amendments not listed above. The scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of the House and Senate who consistently vote to support economic freedom and individual liberty.

FreedomWorks Vice President of Legislative Affairs Jason Pye released the following statement regarding the news that Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) might oppose President Trump’s conservative reformer to head up the Export-Import Bank:

Time and time again, the federal government has encroached into a sector of the economy and imposed a one-size-fits-all regulation that stifles competition, hurts small businesses, and creates troubling criminal penalties for lack of compliance. This is epitomized in federal involvement in menu labeling -- regulations and requirements for private businesses to disclose caloric information on physical menus.

The Senate-passed tax bill is a policy triumph that will provide a shot of performance enhancing drugs into the veins of the economy. It’s not perfect, but the combined effect of cutting business tax rates, eliminating the state and local tax deduction, and repealing the ObamaCare individual mandate tax, means we are at the precipice of the biggest conservative policy victory since the Reagan years.

On December 7, Reuters published an article, subsequently shared by The Drudge Report, that is a quintessential example of why many on the right label mainstream media outlets as “fake news.” The article is titled “Millions would lose mortgage, gift write-offs under U.S. tax bill: study.” What this headline suggests is patently false. The actual text of the article is not much better, spinning the reforms to common tax deductions in the pending House and Senate tax reform bills to a nausea-inducing extent.